A very useful and essential skill to be an ACTIVE Self-Manager for everything in your life is to understand the steps and importance of setting goals.

Setting goals is important for two main reasons -

1. To help you achieve results
2. To allow you to reward yourself once a goal has been achieved

Remember: You are the manager – and just like the manager of an organisation or a household you must:

1.      Decide what you want to achieve.

2.      Look for alternative ways to achieve the goal.

3.      Start making short-term plans by making an action plan, or agreement with yourself.

4.      Carry out your action plan.

5.      Check the results.

6.      Make changes as needed, and

7.      Remember to reward yourself.

Let’s say you’re feeling down and unhappy, but not sure why.  After some thought and talking about your mood and feelings, you realise you’re missing a good friend, who lives some distance away.  Although you talk on the phone, you really want see them, and have the close friendship you used to have before the MS.  Now you have identified what you want to achieve – to visit your friend.

In the past you would’ve driven, but now you are unable to drive, or maybe just find that distance too tiring, so now you must look for alternative ways to achieve the goal.

• You may invite some-else along to share the driving with you, and maybe split the long drive and travel over 2 days, instead of one long days drive.
• You could consider travelling by train, bus, or plane.
• Is it possible for your friend to come and visit you, instead?

Although, you don’t really like this option as you feel you would like to get-away from home for awhile.

Now you start to investigate and give each possibility careful consideration.

You decide that driving isn’t a good idea, as you think it would tire you too much, and the bus route isn’t close to your destination.  You check with the airlines and realise that you can’t afford a flight, and all the cheap flights are very early morning, or very late night, which isn’t convenient.   However, the train station is only a few kilometres from your friend’s house.  After talking with your friend, you decide that you will take the train to visit, and her sister will be able to meet you at the train station on your arrival.

So now you have a plan on how your goal will be achieved.  Write down all the things that need to be planned or done before you can go on your trip.

These would include – find a suitable time to take the trip (are there any medical appointments coming up, etc)?  You will need to check timetables, buy a ticket, work out how to carry your luggage etc. As your balance isn’t the best, you decide you need to find out if you are able to walk on a train while it’s moving, so you can get to the bathroom or café carriage. You know that the rail station has some stairs that you will have negotiate, so you decided to start walking up and down the front stairs at home, to become more comfortable with stairs, and going for a short walk each day, to help improve you steadiness and confidence. You decide you are going to continue doing these things each day.  You have now got an Action Plan in place and once you start achieving these smaller goals, you will be doing the action plan.

After a week, you look back on your results, and although you are walking better, you still feel a bit unsteady, and unsure about walking on a moving train, especially if it’s a bit crowded.  You decide to change your plan slightly and ask a physiotherapist for any helpful suggestions. It is suggested that you use a cane, to help steady yourself.  Although you hate the thought of this, you agree to give it a go, and find that it really does help you feel more confident and steady.  You now decide to take a short local train ride, to see how things go. 

Now that you have achieved the goal of being mobile on a moving train, you can move onto another small goal helping you towards your big goal of visiting your close friend. Instead of your goal being a dream, it is now much closer to being a reality.

The hardest thing about goal setting is working out what it is you really want to achieve.  The long term goal should be something that you want to do or achieve – it maybe going on a trip, getting back to work, shopping independently, going back to a sport you used to play, or just walking to the local shop.  Remember, it is something that you want, but don’t start with an unrealistic goal that is too far out of your reach.

Once you have decided on what your long-term goal will be, its time to look and consider all of your available options. Once that is done, its time to make the short-term plans or Action Plan, keep in mind this is all for you.  You don’t make these goals and plans to please family or friends.  It’s something YOU must be doing for YOURSELF.

If one of your action plans is to go for a short walk, you need to write it down, being very specific about details – will you walk in the morning before breakfast, or just before lunch? Exactly how far will you walk, around the block, to the end of the street? Maybe you will walk for 15minutes one way, then back home again. How often will you go for a walk?  Again make this realistic.  Its not a good idea to plan to walk every day, as the weather may not allow this, then you will feel that you have failed in your Action Plan, and not continue to achieve your long-term goal.  You could plan on walking 3 times for the next week, which is probably more achievable.

When writing your Action Plan, start at the point of where you are at now. If you can only walk for 2 minutes before needing a rest, start at that point and then you can gradually increase the time, as you achieve more comfortably.  Another reason for only walking 3 times in a week is to allow yourself some time off.  All of us have days when we just don’t want to do anything.  Don’t push yourself too much, but don’t use this as an excuse to stop aiming for your goals.

Once you have written you Action Plan, review it carefully, and make sure you are confident you will be able to follow and achieve the Plan. Once you are happy with the plan you have made, write it down and post it where you can see it every day. Keep track of your progress, and don’t forget to reward yourself. Here is an example of an Action Plan.

In writing your Action Plan, be sure it includes

1.      What you are going to do

2.      How much you are going to do

3.      When you are going to do it

4.      How many days a week you are going to do it

For example: This week I will walk around the block before lunch, three times.

This week I will

• Walk around the block (What)
• 2 times (How much)
• Before lunch (When)
• 3 times this week (How Many)

How confident are you? (0=not at all: 10= totally confident) 8

	MARK OFF	COMMENTS
MONDAY	NO	RAINING
TUESDAY	YES	WALKED SLOWLY LOOKED AT  GARDENS
WEDNESDAY	YES	WALKED SLOWLY, MORE CONFIDENT
THURSDAY	NO	RAINING AGAIN
FRIDAY	YES	FELT MORE STEADY & CONFIDENT
SATURDAY	NO	WENT SHOPPING THEN RESTED
SUNDAY	NO	FAMILY CAME TO VISIT

Once you have achieved the first Action Plan, you may revise it for the following week eg: you may increase the distance / time you walk.  You can then continue to build on this until you have reached your big goal. For instance, if your big goal was to walk to a local coffee shop (about a 20min walk for you), you may’ve started walking for 2 minutes and after 1 week you increased the time to a 4 minute walk, and so on. So you will be gradually, but steadily working towards your big goal.  It wont take you long to achieve what you originally set-out to do.  Once you have achieved your goal and walked to the coffee shop, reward yourself by going into the shop, sitting down and having a drink and a small cake.

The Basics of a Successful Action Plan

1.      Something YOU want to do

2.      Reasonable (something you can expect to achieve)

3.      Behaviour specific (losing weight is a NOT behaviour ,not eating after dinner is a behaviour)

4.      Answers the questions – What? – How much? – When? –           How Often?      

5.      A good confidence level that you will be able to complete the contract with yourself

If you can use these steps to work towards your smaller goals successfully, you will achieve your big goals, just remember not to set your goals too far from reach, you want to achieve and feel successful at achieving, not a failure because you have set your goals too far ahead, sure and steady wins the race.  This method of goal setting has helped me gain my confidence, self-esteem and made me feel like I can still live a life and do things, just maybe a little slower than in the past.